Anyone know when the IDE ram cards are coming?

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: HDTVMan
4 gig is a 32bit limitation. With the newer processors they can map out memory way beyond. Lets hope the board allows you to exceed 4 gig as well since your swapfile is usually set larger than your system ram.

Sure were at the mercy of the ATA interface but maybe someone will implement this somehow on the motherboard giving it an extra boost by accessing the ram at full speed. But consider this compared to hard drive performance.

Most of us will see significant improvements just because a lot of us dont use seperate hard drives for the swap file. I use a seperate partition just to avoid fragmentation of my OS and Swapfile. But Putting the swapfile on a seperate hard drive from the one your using makes a big difference. Now exclude it from the hard drive entirely and this will be really impressive. If only windows would avoid using a swapfile if you have the ram? For this I think the windows developers should be kicked in the kneecaps.

I don't understand. What does the 32bit limitation have to do with a hard-drive. This isn't system memory or even a PCI device. The PCI is supplying power. This is a SATA driven device. Theoretically, it should hold as much memory/storage as the SATA specs allow. The cost is definitely prohibitive for anything over 1gig per dimm but capacity isn't held back by the 32bit OS limitation.

Edit: changed is to isn't in last line. Thanks EODetroit. That is what I get for multitasking and not proofreading. LOL. I contradicted myself within my own post.

 

[EODetroit]

Yup that's the coolest thing about it imo. Its a waste really to put fast ram in there, since it'll run it slow anyways. So get some cheap ram or old ram you have lying around, and call it good. I'm sure when they come out, and we know the exact specifications of what ram is really needed, people will be posting all kinds of hot deals on slow ram that they got to work, lol.

 

[HDTVMan]

4 gig is a system memory limitation of 32bit not hard drive. To go beyond that the CPU and OS must support it. As I recall the 64bit cpu's support 48bit which is terrabyte range.

Same goes for hard drives now. 48bit LBA is being used. So tbytes is the limit.

 

[EODetroit]

Originally posted by: michaelpatrick33
The cost is definitely prohibitive for anything over 1gig per dimm but capacity isn't held back by the 32bit OS limitation.

Fixed.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: HDTVMan
4 gig is a system memory limitation of 32bit not hard drive. To go beyond that the CPU and OS must support it. As I recall the 64bit cpu's support 48bit which is terrabyte range.

Same goes for hard drives now. 48bit LBA is being used. So tbytes is the limit.

I still don't understand. We are not talking about system memory. We are talking about a hard-drive. The OS will see the Gigabyte device as a hard-drive not memory so the limitation doesn't come into play at all.

 

[HDTVMan]

Originally posted by: michaelpatrick33

Originally posted by: HDTVMan
4 gig is a 32bit limitation. With the newer processors they can map out memory way beyond. Lets hope the board allows you to exceed 4 gig as well since your swapfile is usually set larger than your system ram.

Sure were at the mercy of the ATA interface but maybe someone will implement this somehow on the motherboard giving it an extra boost by accessing the ram at full speed. But consider this compared to hard drive performance.

Most of us will see significant improvements just because a lot of us dont use seperate hard drives for the swap file. I use a seperate partition just to avoid fragmentation of my OS and Swapfile. But Putting the swapfile on a seperate hard drive from the one your using makes a big difference. Now exclude it from the hard drive entirely and this will be really impressive. If only windows would avoid using a swapfile if you have the ram? For this I think the windows developers should be kicked in the kneecaps.

I don't understand. What does the 32bit limitation have to do with a hard-drive. This isn't system memory or even a PCI device. The PCI is supplying power. This is a SATA driven device. Theoretically, it should hold as much memory/storage as the SATA specs allow. The cost is definitely prohibitive for anything over 1gig per dimm but capacity is held back by the 32bit OS limitation.

They still have to map out the memory with some sort of a ATA to MEMORY interface. 4096 makes sense but it would be easy enough for them to expand if needed in the future beyond that.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Engineer working on project states there is no technical reason to limit capacity to 4 1gig dimms

There is no technical reason for a 4 GB limit

 

[Viditor]

The limitations are only that the card won't run faster than DDR200 (you can put anything in, but that's the fastest it will run).
You can certainly use 2GB Dimms, or even 4GB dimms...
For an 8GB Ram/HDD, that would make it ~$630 each...raid 2 together for a 16GB drive and it's $1280.
But raiding 2 4GB drives would be the fastest and most economical model.

 

[NittanyLAncer]

OS and ATA limitations have nothing to do with that 4GB limit (which is a HARDWARE limit).

In order to be able to address the RAM as a Disk Drive you need a memory controller between the SATA interface and the RAM and some circuitry formatting call/response messages. My guess would be that that is NOT done with software, as it shouldn't be TOO hard with wires (although they may use a PLA for future upgradability and covering their behinds) and would significantly bog down any proccessor cheap enough to go on a card like that. If that memory controller is 32-bit, or any of the stuff around it is designed with 32-bit in mind, 4GB limit. Of course, they could always replace the 32-bit memory controller with a 48, 64, 96, 128 bit controller and up the limit, but that requires more money be spent on hardware.

If you're working with current technology and you want to use DRAM, you can't escape a memory controller, you can intigrate it or virtualize it inside your PU, but you still NEED it.

But yea, I'll be grabbing one. I only wonder if it'll be able to use ECC/Registered RAM (got a slew of 1GB PC2100 Server chips).

 

[BitByBit]

I still don't know why there aren't any PROM cards or similar available which would store the OS kernel, allowing far faster booting.
My Atari ST has this very thing, so if the technology to store operating systems in ROM was there back in the 80s, surely it could be done now?

 

[EODetroit]

I think you can do something like that now using flash drives.

 

[HDTVMan]

Technically it could easily go beyond 4 gig. Just because its serial doesnt mean its unlimited. Could be 8 or 16gig. It all depends on how much they are addressing with the SATA to MEMORY Controller. I would hope its LBA48.

OS plays a part! Fat 16, Fat32, now LBA48. Try formatting a single partition greater than 32gig on a 320gig hard drive with windows xp in fat and see how far you get then try creating files larger than 2 and 4 gig. Those are software limits despite todays current hardware which supports LBA48. If your bios doesnt support LBA48 then your limited to something like 127gig. We even went through this with drives larger than 8gig because of a 16bit limitation or was it 24bit? Who cares.

Raid makes sense using different channels so getting more than 1 makes sense. Maybe they can do that initially somehow and make 2 banks or even 4 banks you just tie in as many SATA connectors as you have banks polulated.